NOAA Report on the Status and Future Plans for GEONETCast Americas Presented to CGMS-43 Working Group IV session, agenda item 3

Status of the GEONETCast Americas (GNC-A) System and Broadcast GNC-A is a regional GEONETCast broadcast which serves much of North America, the Caribbean Basin and all of Central and South America Complementary to NOAA’s direct readout and online dissemination services 2 Megabits per Second, C-Band, DVB-S commercial satellite broadcast on Intelsat-21 Receive stations utilize a 2.4 or 1.8 meter antenna depending on location Designed to use COTS hardware components which can often be sourced locally NOAA working closely with GNC-A Coordination Group and regional partners to support and address: GEO-GEOSS Societal Benefit Areas Requirements for WMO RA III/IV within the limitation of the available bandwidth

Status of the GEONETCast Americas (GNC-A) System and Broadcast NOAA plans to continue support for GNC-A at its current level Internet connections, processing system, satellite up-link system, and satellite transponder are all monitored on a continuous basis by contract personnel Historical availability of the broadcast is nearly 100% The operation of individual content channels, configuration settings within the accounts and incoming products are administered on an 8 X 5 or Monday through Friday basis remotely by NOAA personnel and are therefore considered “best effort” GNC-A Coordination Group has been re-vitalized to serve as a forum for regional partners, data providers and users to provide advice and coordinated input on the GNC-A data and products, priorities, system operation, capacity building Membership open to all countries in the Americas Volunteers from 5 countries and 5 US Partner organizations

GEONETCast Americas Accomplishments Expanded the GNC-A product suite to include spatial data image files GOES-East Full Disk imagery every 3 hours GOES-East Northern & Southern Hemisphere sector imagery every 30 minutes Full resolution GEOTIFF format in three channels; visible, infrared & water vapor Decision made to include EUMETSAT Seviri data every three hours in April-May 2015 Full resolution of all channels in native format Capacity building initiatives including training sessions and on-line events Training sessions by INPE in Brazil and Mexico and online via Webex in Dec 2014 WMO/CGMS Vlab Train the Trainer event April 25-26 2015 prior to NSC-2015 Project to provide tutorials on using various product formats on GNC-A Guides on sourcing and installation of ground receive systems developed

GEONETCast Americas Short Term Projects – ISCS Backup Broadcast NOAA National Weather Service International Services and Communication Systems (ISCS) backup satellite dissemination utilizing GNC-A Replicate GTS Internet File Service (GIFS) content and directory structure on GNC-A Content includes watches, warnings, forecasts, tropical storm info, aviation model fields, graphics, etc NWS has been providing products over the Alert and WMO-WMC Washington sub-channels for several years Existing products and remainder of GIFS products will be subsumed into 12 channels corresponding to the GIFS channels Product dissemination has been successfully tested Plan is to have all or part of the service flowing over GNC-A in April-May 2015

GEONETCast Americas Short Term Projects – Disaster Charter GNC-A is an alternative dissemination method for the Disaster Charter GNC-A is uniquely situated to support the delivery of Charter information To areas affected by natural disasters in certain situations where there is a GNC-A Station in the affected country Especially if the internet infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed GNC-A has begun an effort to increase our visibility with the Charter and to encourage increased use of GNC-A where there is a presence in the HydroMet or Disaster Response agency Successful tests of using GNC-A have been accomplished

GEONETCast Americas Short Term Projects – GNC-A Networks GNC-A continues to work to support the small but growing group of networks of GNC-A stations within the countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Colombia and Brazil Costa Rican HydroMet Service has 4 stations NMN Offices in San Juan, San Juan Airport, Limon Airport, Liberia Airport Provides image and model products El Salvador HydroMet has 5 stations Became a provider of image and model products in 2015 Deployed with an innovated method of viewing products Colombia HydroMet has 5 stations Plans to expand their network to 11 stations and become a provider Brazil SigmaCast project to expand network to 23 stations and will include: Software development, visualization tools for GNC-A products and training Mexico has one station in Mexico City; Plan to install up to 6 or 7 more stations

GEONETCast Americas Long Term Projects GOES-R Series Imagery NOAA will work with its technical personnel and the user community to replace GOES-13 imagery with roughly equivalent amounts GOES-R imagery if it becomes the operational East satellite Training Channel Usage GNC-A will continue to work with the WMO/CGMS Vlab and other Partners to expand the use of the training channel as part of the capacity building effort One high priority is the inclusion of training materials on specific products and formats to increase the usefulness of the broadcast content Conversion of Stations GNC-A plans to work with former users of the NWS ISCS to convert their stations to receive GNC-A if they choose to do so Possibly EUMETSAT Americas users if that service is discontinued in the future